HPD-Owned Vacant Tax Lots

To advance the goals of Housing New York, this administration’s plan to create or preserve 300,000 affordable homes by 2026, HPD has moved aggressively through its inventory of vacant and underutilized City-owned land, developing thousands of affordable homes in the process.

HPD is also working with other City agencies to develop affordable housing on other publicly-owned properties that are not already slated for parks, police precincts, and other essential services.

And as part of Housing New York 2.0, the City proposed a number of new initiatives to maximize vacant or underused sites for affordable housing development, while making progress on the sites under HPD's jurisdiction.

Since the release of Housing New York 2.0 in November 2017, through November 2018:

• The number of vacant lots in our jurisdiction has decreased overall from 1,009 lots to 886 lots, representing a 12% reduction. This decrease is largely due to the successful closing and conveyance of lots for affordable housing development to developers, in addition to lot mergers and transfers to other City agencies for lots programmed for non-residential uses.
• There has been a 112% increase in lots programmed for future affordable housing development.
• We have reduced the number of lots facing significant development challenges (odd shapes, small size that requires assemblage with private owner, infrastructure) by 71% through the resolution of complicated site conditions, and the transfer of sites to other agencies, where appropriate.
• Transfers to other lead agencies have also led to a 65% reduction in lots programmed for non-residential uses.

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Note: The number and status of vacant lots is constantly in flux due to routine administrative processes related to active development projects and initiatives, such as tax lot mergers and subdivisions; street demappings; and acquisitions that are part of planning processes underway.

Tax lots are not equivalent to development sites or development projects, and many projects require multiple tax lots.